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| The "D" is silent; I'm not. |
Garry Shandling's 1990s HBO sitcom The Larry Sanders Show about a neurotic late night talk show host and his staff who keep him semi-functional offered this insight into contemporary cultural power, as summarized in a 1998 Los Angeles Times article:
[Producer] Artie chews out [writer] Phil after his repeated homophobic jokes prompt a gay assistant (Scott Thompson) to hit the show with a sexual harassment lawsuit. “You know who runs this town?” Artie growls at Phil.
“The Jews?” Phil says.
“No,” Artie retorts. “The gay Jews.”
(The LA Times' recollection of Phil's reply that sets up Artie's retort is a little different from mine, which is that Phil replied something like: "The Jews, of course" without a question mark. If there was anything quizzical about how Phil responded, it would have been his implication: "Why are you bothering to ask me a question, Artie, that obviously I know the answer to?")
From Politico:
Biden: 'Jewish heritage is American heritage'
By JENNIFER EPSTEIN | 5/21/13 8:18 PM EDT
Vice President Joe Biden spoke at length Tuesday night about the influence of Judaism on the United States, dating back to the country's founding and to the present day as Jews helped shape views on gay rights.
... "No group has had such an outsized influence per capita as all of you standing before you, and all of those who went before me and all of those who went before you.”
Biden spoke for nearly 20 minutes at the American Institute of Architects building in Washington, at times improvising after asking that the teleprompter machine that had been set up in the event space be taken down.
Djoe Unchained!
... “The embrace of immigration” is part of that, as is the involvement of Jews in social justice movements.
... “I believe what affects the movements in America, what affects our attitudes in America are as much the culture and the arts as anything else,” he said. That’s why he spoke out on gay marriage “apparently a little ahead of time.”
“It wasn’t anything we legislatively did. It was ‘Will and Grace,’ it was the social media. Literally. That’s what changed peoples’ attitudes. That’s why I was so certain that the vast majority of people would embrace and rapidly embrace” gay marriage, Biden said.
“Think behind of all that, I bet you 85 percent of those changes, whether it’s in Hollywood or social media are a consequence of Jewish leaders in the industry.
(Here's Joel Stein's 2008 column in the Los Angeles Times "How Jewish Is Hollywood?" giving demographic numbers on the ethnicity of studio bosses. And here's Ben Stein's essay on the same subject from 1996. A casual reading of the two Steins' articles would suggest that the top jobs in Hollywood became more monolithically Jewish from 1996 to 2008, but of course the actual trend, whatever it is, should be researched in greater depth by ... by ... uh, by some careful social scientist who is independently wealthy and who never eats lunch.)
"The influence is immense, the influence is immense.
Fortunately for Joe's post-VP career prospects, he can not only talk himself into trouble, but, since he never shuts up, he can also talk himself out of trouble as well:
"And, I might add, it is all to the good,” he said.
In other news, former CNN anchor Rick Sanchez now has found a variety of part-time jobs after merely a couple of years or so of unemployment.
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